This invention relates to a chair structure. It relates particularly to a single piece molded resin chair shell suitable for use in a variety of chair configurations.
Molded resin chair shells have become popular in recent years for use in the construction of office and residential chairs of contemporary design. Their popularity is also the result of the light weight of the chair, the ease and relatively low cost of manufacture and the ability to produce the chair shell in a variety of colors and textures.
Examples of single piece molded resin chairs are disclosed in the following United States Patents:
______________________________________ 3,441,310 Gale 1969 3,604,749 Parmett 1970 4,856,845 Massonnet 1989 5,044,691 Guichon 1991 5,088,792 Guichon 1992 ______________________________________
Many of the single piece molded resin chair shells have not proven satisfactory in service either as a result of them being too rigid and uncomfortable to the user or as a result of a tendency for them to crack or break from the fatigue of repeated flexures of the seat and back during use of the chair.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,529,247 issued in 1985 to Stumpf et al. discloses a single piece molded resin chair shell which uses a plurality of horizontal slots in the seat and vertical slots in the back to provide more comfort to the user by allowing the seat and the back to flex relative to each other in response to the position and weight of the user. These slots and their relative motion control the contour and geometry of the chair shell and as a result limit its comfort to the user.